All there is
Filed under Essay.
I thought of Christmas this morning, and I can't explain why. I found myself trying to figure out where the tree would go this year, now that we've moved the family room where my studio used to be. How silly. We'll find a spot when the time comes.
My iPhone is running the public beta and I've added the Featured Photo widget to my home screen. It cycles through my library and surfaces images, following the dark arts of algorithms and machine learning.
What it really does is hit you over the head with the past.
Right now, Anaïs is the chrysalis. No...she's the full-on butterfly. Within a few months she's gone from little girl to teen/borderline adulthood. I'd seen it with Jacob but it's so striking with girls. It's like...instant. An image from less than a year ago may as well be from another lifetime.
But then, we've been accumulating lifetimes lately.
It's the decor, the backgrounds that stand out in these images as well. My parent's house never changed beyond the usual cosmetic details, the ones that necessarily evolve—refreshed carpeting, wall colours etc. After my dad passed away, the house eventually took on my mom's persona...but the transformation was always on the surface. My sister's bedroom retained its yellow softness, mine kept the black footprint of my own teenage years. The blue bathroom never turned green or white. The chambre pas finie was never finished and my scribbles marked its walls until the house was sold. Until the very end.
Ours is forever in flux—like a set of blocks, constantly re-assembled.
So, I thought of Chrismas, in this sweltering heat. How it won't be the same this year, how we'll be unwrapping our gifts in another room, breaking a ritual in place since the kids were born.
It'll be different.
Because change is all there is.
